Tony Benn once recommended that we should ask our leaders 5 Important Questions:

What power have you got?

Where did you get it from?

In whose interests do you exercise it?

To whom are you accountable?

And how can we get rid of you?

Now, it strikes me that, were I to sit Mariano Rajoy down with a drink and say: "Look Mariano, I'm going to ask you 5 questions, and between you, me and this glass of gazpacho, be honest." I think he'danswer:

Complete and Total

We have always had it.

Our own.

No-one

You can't.

But things were not always like this. Once upon a time - for a fleeting moment in history - Spain enjoyed a flourishing democracy unlike anything the world had seen before, but it lasted just a few months. One man, however, witnessed that moment and wrote down the lessons he learnt in 3 majorly important books:

Homage to Catalonia

Animal Farm

1984

And his name, was George Orwell. (Read More below for video and podcast on Orwell)

Shadows and Silhouettes (Book 1) was re-released at the beginning of the month with the promise that the sequel - Book 2 Blanco y Negro would be available from this week.

Blanco y Negro continues to explore contemporary Spain by asking: What happens when you remove the sky blues, verdant greens and sandy yellows from this hybrid country?

The answer can be found in the contrast of dramatic images and the revelatory words of different travellers as they have arrive on these shores. Download, put your feet up, slow down and enjoy this new book.

"Nice Cup of Coffee in Plaza Mayor" or Stunning Photobook?

Choice is Yours. Have a look at some of the screen shots above and decide for yourself. Usually 2.49 - each book is now half price (Nice cup of coffee or 75 pages of stunning photography showing another Spain altogether. Find out more about the series here: Or just grab a copy right away and download both versions in PDF and epub for the same price from here. (Share and get the 50% off).

Yup, thats right, a NEW updated and revised edition of Silhouettes and Shadows comes out this week and it's free. Usually 2.49 - Shadows and Silhouettes (Book 1 in the series of 4) is downloadable right now to anyone who shares or tweets it this week

PDF or ePub?

You say Tomay-toes and I say Tomar-toes!Got an ipad, tablet or smartphone? Then e-Pub is probably your choice? Got a laptop or desktop? Then maybe its PDF. Can't decide? Well, worry not as both are in the same convenient zipped package. E-pub and PDF huddled together for comfort.

So What's it all About?

Pick a selection of choice quotes from writers on Spain and match them to a series of gorgeous images and a theme begins to emerge. Shadows and Silhouettes is the first theme in a series of 4 that explores Spain by contrasting the written word and the image. Do this, and another Spain becomes visible - one that previously lay hidden.

Why 4 Books?

Each book takes a different theme, but builds from the previous one. Shadows and Silhouettes introduces the series, Blanco Y Negro (book 2) builds on the theme of light and contrast, whilst book 3: Speaking and Shouting talks about, well...speech. Finally Book 4 deals with harmony and balance in a country that is too often seen as a society in conflict. But these are not text books, they are photo books with succulent words that ooze from the edges of the page. These are books to devour over a glass of something, accompanied by a garlicky olive or two.

And Book 1 is Free?

Yup. For the next week its free. All I ask in return is that you share the book. That means send out a tweet or share on Facebook to get a copy. Don't worry if you don't have a twitter account or FaceBook account (really, you don't?) - just let me know and I'll get a copy to you by other means. It's not obligatory to share - it's just a nice thing to do. (Plus it saves you 2.49).

Can't I just pay the 2.49 ?

Emmm, sure. If you prefer.

And what's with Book 2?

Blanco Y Negro comes out at the end of this month. Make sure you are subscribed to the site to be notified. Its bigger and better. and Blanco Y Negro (out Feb 25th 2014) takes the contrasts of Shadows and Silhouettes and investigates Spain from a perspective stripped of colour. Find out what is left when colour is removed from a country that is synonymous with Miro, sunsets and blue skies. You'll be surprised.

The Outbreak of the Civil War From The Wife of Gerald Brenan

Gamel Woolsey

Death´s Other Kindom by Gamel Woolsey was not - as popular myth speculates - referring to living in Spain under the leadership of the Partido Popular - but rather the Spain of 1936 during the immediate aftermath of the July Military Uprising.

Written from the relative safety of their Churriana Cortijo (In Malaga) Woolsey relates how she and her husband - Hispanist Gerald Brenan (of South of Granada fame) - lived those first few tumultuous months of the civil war, before the invasion by Nationalist forces and the infamous exodus of the city of Malaga.

What gives the book its unique perspective for anyone interested in this revolutionary period of Spanish history, is that unlike other tales of the civil war by foreigners (Orwell, Lee, Bethune) Woolsey treads what she believes is a fine line between the Republicans and Nationalists. She exhibits both sympathy and outrage with her village - her 'pueblo' - as she wobbles precariously on the shaky fence of impartiality.One unexpected outcome of this posturing, is her lucid depiction of the sadness, frustration and futility of wars as it affects all men irrespective of sides, perhaps referencing her chosen title here - taken as it is from T.S. Eliots poem: The Hollow Men.

As her 'pueblo' attempts to protect, defend, and finally bring to trial their own people, her humanity and compassion guides her though the successive waves of violence and vengeance in each chapter. Whilst the forces of rebellion made ground, allegiances become more fluid, or - as often the case as pressure mounts - set in stone as the war stumbles blindly forward.It is a moving and intimate portrayal of those crucial few months of 1936, and unlike almost any other account of the war in English, it is told perceptively from someone who not only saw the scars opening on the horizon in front of her, but engaged with those who lives she was connected to, and whose lives were thrown so dramatically into turmoil by such events.Gamel Woolsey returned again to Spain after the Civil War with Gerald Brenan, but her life as a writer and spiritual Hispanist would be forever eclipsed by the success of her husbands more analytical writings on the origins of conflict and his time living in the Alpujarras. (The Spanish Labyrinth and South of Granada).

Like Brenan, Woolsey was buried in the English Cemetery in Malaga.

The Books

Normal Lewis' Voices of the Old Sea is a beautifully told account of the transformations that undergo a small fishing village on the Catalan coast in the late 1940s. What makes the book worth reading is Lewis' skill in capturing the ordinary, the mundane and the changeless existence of the people until tourism arrives one day, and decides to stay. Their initial rejection and ultimate embrace of this new era unfolds with insight and compassion.

For those interested in contemporary Spain, the story is echoed across the whole peninsula as the gradual spread of tourism, like gout or any other infection, spreads down the coast, across to the Balearic and canary islands and finally, from the 1980s onward systematically inland.

Yet despite what on the surface looks to be like a malignant disease, Spain somehow still retains an identity and character undeniably Iberian. Where other cultures would have fallen, subsumed in the tidal wave of the new consumerist religion, Spain continues to maintain much of its tradition and culture despite the forces of invasion. Perhaps because - even after 40 years of democracy - Spain is still a relatively poor country within the EU, and, as Lewis points out at the end of the book: "Corruption doesn't come naturally to the poor as it does to the rich".

Goodreads Review: Here in Spain

I just re-discovered this old classic by David Mitchell and found some fascinating quotes and stories inside. It was published back in the 1980's by Lookout Publication, which when I first came to Spain, was one of the few glossy and quality mags dealing with Living in Spain. Below is a review I left on goodreads, and to the right is the only link I could find on Amazon. Whether it is really available for just 1 pence, who knows. But I'd say its definitely one for your bookshelf - even if it may cost a little more.

Excellent Account by Mitchell of the travellers that have passed through and left their thoughts on Spain since the 17th century. Mitchell was a journalist and contributor to the Lookout magazine and this appears to be a compilation of his research on how the country has been portrayed by English speakers over the last 4 centuries. Particularly apt, are his chapters on tourism in Spain during the last half of the 20th century - something so bitingly relevant still today.

A difficult to find book, but one nevertheless worth picking up if you see a copy, if for no other reason than to gain a brief overview as to the rich legacy such writers have left.